Maps
by SpiresAboveJosephine
Summary: I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself. What does it matter if there are no fairy tales? Perhaps we write our own, and maybe there are no endings.
1. Chapter 1

Chapter One

_And days die young when you're gone and you're gone _

There goes the sun, oceans away

And leaves the day for someone else.

_The how I can't recall _

_But I'm staring at what was once the wall _

_Separating east and west _

_Now they meet amidst the broad daylight._

January

There is a grandfather clock, ancient and towering, in the hallway by the front door. Despite its age it still works, the pendulum swinging back and forth and back and forth in perfect rhythm, chiming away the hours.

Rose has to pass by the clock every day as she comes and goes from the house that has not quite yet become a home, but rarely spares it a passing glance these days. She slips in through the heavy doors as quietly as possible, the rest of the house is silent and asleep by now; she is usually the one to keep the latest hours at work. The lock clicks shut behind her, shutting out the frigid night air. She unwinds the thick knitted scarf from around her neck, bustling about with her mind on the place she has just returned from.

Without intention she suddenly pauses mid-step in front of the grandfather clock, attention diverted for no particular reason, head cocked to one side as she watches the hands slowly creep around to the unfailing tick tock, tick tock.

She stands there for a long while, lost in fleeting thoughts and snippets of memories, and closes her eyes briefly. Blurs and vestiges of laughter flash behind her eyelids. Remembrances are still as sharp and clear as though they were yesterday.

_All the time in the world,_ she thinks ruefully, _and now no time at all_. Over a year in this house, a year passed with Torchwood, a year passed in this city that is simultaneously hers and not hers. Sometimes the days fly by and sometimes they drag, and she has no control over them and sits and watches her own time wind on.

Rose snaps her eyes open, the grandfather clock is chiming eleven and she is still standing in the shadowed hallway. She hangs her woolen coat and attempts to tip-toe upstairs, but despite her efforts floorboards creak and squeak beneath her feet. Rose never had quite got the hang of furtively sneaking about.

The house is Pete's, and it is cavernous, but it is not the same one Rose remembers running from all those years ago. She doubts anyone could have lived in the latter, and she has found herself reluctant to move out of this new one. She had gone looking for a place of her own not too long ago, but all of the flats were too bare and empty, and so small that she'd begun to feel suffocated by the walls and ceilings, and she couldn't stay. Pete's house, at least, doesn't close in around you.

She automatically crosses her bedroom to the towering windows and yanks the dense curtains to the side, exposing the clear glass and the room is at once flooded with moonlight. Jackie had argued that she could have chosen a room with a better view than the side garden and garage, but she had picked it for the abundant light, during the day and at night. She unbraids the still-platinum hair hanging down her back, and looks at her hands in the luminous glow - there is something comforting about standing in light that has traveled through space and time at such an unimaginable speed that it is often not thought of as traveling at all. _Of what use to light is a concept of time?_ She looks out to the expanse of sky with a weariness that feels old.

Rose fades into sleep eventually, although sleep is not favorable to her. A year ago she would fight falling asleep, because upon waking she would experience the momentary disarray of not properly remembering where she was, and wondering why the room was not shaking and groaning around her as it should. Then the layers of dreams would abruptly fall away, and reality would settle all around her as the glowing numbers of the digital clock beside her bed came into focus. Too much sleeping resulted in too many tears.

But Rose, now, can't recall the last time she cried, or if she even can anymore. Torchwood has taken care of that for her, and she sleeps because she needs to. She dreams of foreign places that are familiar to her, of frozen oceans and rain falling on alien shores, and a darkening sky that fills with gathering clouds.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

_New day dawning, rain is falling _

_Newspapers blow at my feet _

_Someone told me, take it easy _

_Take all the time you need._

_Every step takes a beat of your heart _

_Through a city that's falling apart _

_On a night that's clouded by years _

_My anger is a form of madness _

_So I'd rather have hope than sadness _

_And you said something stupid like _

_Love steals us from loneliness._

The next morning, very early as the sky is just beginning to pale to grey, Rose is awakened by the pager on the table beside her bed. It buzzes and vibrates with such ferocity that it clatters onto the hardwood floor, and within seconds, her mobile rings shrilly. She blinks and fumbles blearily around for the pager - Torchwood. _Alert._ Rose yawns at it and sits up, swinging her feet to the floor and wincing at the chill.

There is always a class five alert, it seems. Rose is not quite sure if levels one through four even exist, or whom in their right mind came up with the system. A strange blip on the radar or an errant meteor crash-landing through the roof of research and development. Torchwood is, at most times, a constant and never-ending stream of activity and alerts. Rose's team has seemed to have firmly adhered to the belief that there is no such thing as being too cautious, and she cannot count the number of times that her pager or mobile or both have gone off with notifications of class five alerts.

Still, she moves quickly.

Jackie is downstairs already, and Rose can hear banging and shrieking and mild obscenities drifting from the kitchen before she even makes it down the hallway. The piercing shrieking is coming from the decidedly unhappy baby perched on Jackie's hip. The banging and obscenities are coming from Jackie yelling bollocks at the malfunctioning dishwasher which has leaked a veritable flood across the tiled floor.

"Morning, mum."

Jackie snits at the dishwasher and consoles her distressed daughter at the same time. "Pete swore up and down he fixed this thing. I'm going to kill 'im when he gets back." Pete is away, on business. She half-heartedly throws a few rags onto the puddle with dissolving malice, and the baby unexpectedly stops crying. "You off to work already, sweetheart?"

Rose says, "She doesn't like it when you yell at the appliances."

She kisses her mother's cheek on her way out, says goodbye to the baby. Jackie is happy here. She has an entire family back again. It is more than she would have thought possible. Rose is happy for this fact, but feels too much like she has returned home after being away for so long, and is now among strangers.

It has rained overnight and a layer of frost and ice covers everything, glinting like steel in the pallid sunlight. Rose shivers and watches her breath rise like puffs of smoke in the still air. Not cold enough for snow, yet. Her mobile urgently rings again as she is getting into her car.

It is Mickey, asking if she's left yet, sounding distracted. She assures him, and frowns down at the phone as she hangs up, wondering why he hadn't conveyed any helpful information.

She doesn't fathom that it is anything that would particularly galvanize her, nowadays. Not as she used to be astonished - _This is the day the sun expands. Welcome to the end of the world._

Rose loves her job, every day, it is what keeps her waking up in the mornings and what keeps her resolved and determined and useful and needed. Torchwood keeps her connected to everything. Being a part of Torchwood means access to knowledge and information that is fast becoming boundless. Compared to the people she passes on the street, Rose alone is a wealth of information herself, but she knows it's peanuts compared to all that is out there. And so she needs desperately to be connected to something.

"We all just want to see you happy, Rose," Mickey had pleaded with her, last year, when everyone still was tip-toeing around her and watching her assiduously, and waiting for her to go off the deep end, as she'd put it.

"I am happy," she'd told him, a bit unconvincingly, but she'd become a decent liar. And he hadn't believed it but had looked past it, and the others at Torchwood stopped being so wary of her, and whatever was halfway to a normal life settled in. She had a backbone and decided that she would be dammed if she was going to spend another month weeping.

The guard at the front gate brusquely waves her in. There is no Yvonne at this Torchwood. Rose keeps an eye on Harriet Jones. There are fewer zeppelins now, and this world is peaceful. The institute itself is still like new, flourishing, rebuilt and up and running from the near-crumbling building it was when they first saw it. The wraiths of all that had once been still faintly haunt the corridors, but they are faint.

The halls and stairways Rose passes briskly through are glossy and shining, the polished appearance belies the messy actuality that is the institute's business . Downstairs, the last levels, where Rose's research and development teams are housed, are where it gets much more interesting.

Mickey is there already, in one of the cavernous rooms that is home to the countless number of alien technology that has fallen into their laps, anything and everything. He is frantically moving about the various amalgamations of weapons, transmitters, hair dryers, radars, all manner of assorted heaps of space junk.

"What's going on, Mickey?" She frowns, and begins to feel unsettled. No one else in the room is looking at her. "What couldn't you tell me over the phone? And how did you get here so quickly?"

He doesn't quite meet her eyes at first. "I've been here since three this morning...listen, Rose..." He is having difficulty with something. "There was a...purported...crash landing. Late last night, just off the coast, near Southend ...we've been having a hell of a time keeping it quiet, we just missed being on the news..."

Rose stares at him, perplexed. "Last night? Why didn't I hear about any of this? C'mon, Mick, what are you on about?" She glances about at the flurry of commotion. "Where's Jake, then?"

"Next door." He finally meets her gaze. "Couldn't fit it anywhere else."

She cocks her head to one side, and brushes past him. Walks into the hangar and stops short. Mickey nearly runs into her.

"This crashed at Southend?" She hears herself ask.

Jake sees her then and waves, radiating uncharacteristic ebullience from across the room. "Rose! Can you believe this? Honest to god spaceship! Had a bitch of a time getting it in here!"

Rose crosses the room and eyes it warily. It is slim and angular, and the size of the zeppelins that patrol the skies above their building. She hasn't seen its type before and cannot place it, but unexplained warning bells are going off inside her head.

Jake is still talking to her. "We lucked out that it's still intact. Everything else we get is fallin' to bits. Can't get inside of it. Not yet, at least."

She walks around the side of it, experiencing that same shivery feeling that being close to something from another world induces. The underside of the ship sports wide gashes of rust, and she is amused for some reason - all of this advanced technology, and machines still rust.

There is writing on the side, above her head, and she steps back and tilts her head up to get a better look.

And sees the words and freezes, paralyzed. An invisible blow to the head. She can feel ice in her veins and forgets to breath.

Bad Wolf.

_badwolf badwolf badwolf badwolf badwolf badwolf badwolf badwolf badwolf badwolf._

Mickey is watching her, Jake hasn't noticed. The sound fades out.

She closes her eyes involuntarily. _Blaidd Drwg. Always the same two words, following us_.

Rose opens her eyes, gingerly touches her fingertips to the letters. It could mean nothing at all, and it could mean everything. Her thoughts swim with it.

"Have you been over to medical yet?"

She looks at Jake sharply, clears her throat. "What...what's in medical?"

He regards her oddly. "Mickey told you, yeah? That this thing was occupied?"

She briefly fights to keep her reticence, gives up, and three seconds later is sprinting up the stairwell towards the medical bay.


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter Three

_Don't tell me you're afraid of the past_

_It's only the future that didn't last._

Mickey catches up to her, slightly out of breath, looking stern. "Rose, listen. It's not him."

She leans her forehead against the glass window and digs her fingernails into her palms. "Why didn't you tell me earlier?" Her voice is barely above a whisper. The floor finds its way back under her feet again. The air feels still and heavy all around.

"Because, Rose, it's not him, not really." He is worried. "He's...he's not _your_ Jack. Not the Jack Harkness from our old world. He's from _this_ universe. And he doesn't know us, Rose." Mickey is nearly pleading for rationality, accurately guessing that she won't decide to be complacent about the matter at hand.

"But he's still...'e's still Jack," Rose breathes, eyes still fixed on the room in front of her. He can't see her back through the glass. The quarantine bay is sizeable, and he is the only one in there, standing out against the white walls and stainless steel. From here, he is a mirror image of the Jack Harkness she left behind all those years ago. The exact same and yet completely different.

She whirls around to face Mickey, nearly wanting to panic. "This is impossible. I can't..." She kicks a nearby bench to illustrate her point, and it clatters noisily against the wall. Her mind is having a difficult time comprehending what, why, and how. There is a stranger in the next room whom she knows and loves. Jack, but not Jack. _I am the Bad Wolf..._

The door on the opposite wall opens and a man in scrubs and glasses emerges, Dr Carroll, who has been here since Torchwood's revival. He sees the question marks on Rose's face and fills them in.

"Happy New Year, by the way, both of you." He stands behind Mickey and looks through the window with a trace of a sigh, removes his glasses. "He won't answer any of our questions. Isn't going to tell us anything anytime soon, it would seem. Went through three nurses trying to run tests, he, ah...made certain unwelcome advances at the first, and then started screaming his head off at the other two."

Rose is staring at him now. "Did you get the test results back?"

"Yes, and..." Carroll shrugs, resigned. "Nothing. He's healthy, and human. Other than a few bruises and questionable mental stability...not even a sniffle."

"So he doesn't have to be in quarantine."

"Well, no, but -"

"I'm going to go and talk to him," she interrupts, and her tone leaves little room for argument.

Mickey gives it a try, regardless, for old times' sake. "I don't think that -"

But Rose is halfway to the door already, curling her hands into fists to keep them from shaking. "Rubbish. I have clearance, don't I?" She does, of course, and so does Mickey, but he doesn't follow. Dr Carroll doesn't have the authority to stop her, but is correctly thinking that he has a right mess on his hands.

Jack looks up as the door swings open, and promptly bounds to his feet. His eyes narrow as he watches her cross the pristine white floor.

Rose realizes she is holding her breath, lets it out and bites her lip. Uncertainty seeps in.

"Rose Tyler." Her voice breaks slightly.

Something flickers across his face for a half of a second, no more, but Rose catches it. Surprise, perhaps. Acknowledgment. She decides to wonder about it later.

"Jack Harkness." He looks her up and down appraisingly, and she almost has to bite back a smile. "_Captain_ Jack Harkness, that is," he amends, in command of every ounce of the self-assurance she remembers so well. Remembers from another person.

Rose fights back the need to throw both arms around him, to smack him, to burst into tears. "Dr Carroll told me you've been reluctant to talk to anyone."

"Could be." He folds his arms across his chest and regards her through narrowed eyes. "Am I a prisoner?"

"No."

"Then why are you keeping me here? Why should I answer your questions? Your people have my ship. My weapons. Dragged me back to this place. And trust me," he adds smugly, "they wouldn't have been successful had I been conscious."

"I'm sorry," Rose says, and she means it. _If it's alien, it's ours_. "I know you have no reason to trust me, but I'm not going to lie to you. I have no reason to."

Jack remains impassive, but his expressions are so dearly familiar to her that she knows he is listening. How far removed is he from her Jack? What has happened to him, where has he been?

"Do you know where you are?" she asks. "When you are?"

"Twenty-first century Earth. Torchwood," he adds, rather darkly, as though the word tastes bitter.

"Yeah." Rose's voice goes soft, and the next words come out in a rush, without thought. "You're a Time Agent. Fifty-first century, yeah?" She is reaching for a connection, anything. But she doesn't quite get the reaction she'd expected.

"Might be." His jaw tightens and he looks weary for a moment, as old as she feels. "But twenty-first century Earth shouldn't know about the Time Agency." His voice has turned cold. There is an utter darkness hiding behind his blithe words and mannerisms. Jack, but not Jack. She wonders what his story is.

Rose sighs, presses her fingertips to her forehead. "We have a lot to talk about."

"You've got that right, at least, Rose Tyler." He walks a few paces back and forth. "About letting me out of this quarantine. And returning my ship. Just as long as we're clear that I'm not staying here." He won't. She knows he'll find a way of leaving whether they formally release him or not. But her head is still spinning with strangeness and hope and frustration, and she wants so very badly to tell him everything. Hundreds of memories are crowding upon themselves.

"You don't 'ave to be in quarantine. But I do want you to come with me."

And having just met her, he has no reason to not be suspicious. But he sees desperation behind her eyes, something achingly similar to himself. The girl standing in front of him is as white as a ghost, and he knows there is more she needs to tell him. There is much to be learned, and if she is grasping at straws, then so is he.

"I want my ship back." He knows his location won't go unnoticed for long.

"I know. I'll tell them to leave it alone."

Jack scoffs. "Doesn't matter. They won't be able to get into it, anyway." He pauses, glances down at himself. "And my clothes. Hospital gowns are too twenty-first century. Although," he continues, twisting his neck around, "you might be on to something with this slit up the back."


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter Four 

_There is fiction in the space between_

_The lines on your face and memories_

_Write it down but it doesn't mean_

_You're not just telling stories. _

Rose steps out into the hallway, shuts the door behind her, and promptly fails to contain a flurry of unwanted tears. Mickey is waiting, and bustles over in a fuss.

She collapses on the bench and drops her head in her hands. In the span of a few minutes, all of the memories she has tried so hard to shelve away have been pushed into sharp relief. _You could come with me._ Running, always running. From what? _If I run fast enough, I won't have to look back._ All gone, everything lost, in the space of a heartbeat. Two heartbeats. _Never say never ever._

Mickey is worrying at her. She draws a long, shaky breath and rejoins the present. If this is going to work, she can't fall to pieces. Nervous breakdowns never helped anyone.

"What did he say to you?"

"Nothing." She lifts her chin in resolve. "I'm signing 'im out. Into my custody."

Mickey holds up both hands, shakes his head. "Oh, no. You can't. He'll take off the second he leaves this building. It's against policy. An' Pete's not even here. No way."

"He won't leave." Rose stands up, determined. Mickey is all too familiar with the expression on her face. "And Pete _isn't _here. Well, that's his problem, then."

Mickey looks slightly offended. "Even so, what're you trying to pull? He doesn't know who you are, Rose." He looks at her searchingly.

"No," she says, sadly. "But he's _here_." And somehow, even that alone would be enough. A connection. The unexpected. She has come too far and seen too much for it not to mean something.

She leaves wordlessly, already faraway in thought. Signs the necessary paperwork, abstractly amazed at how easy it is, at how nobody questions her. Travel the universe, save the world a few times, and autonomy is available _en masse. _And authority which Rose rarely utilizes.

She passes Jake on her way back, and tells him to stop working on the ship. No explanation. He looks as if he'd like to tell her to piss off, but keeps his opinions silent until she has left the room.

And Jack, surprisingly compliantly, walks with her out of Torchwood Tower without question. His footsteps next to hers sound familiar. An echo of all the footfalls lost on countless worlds running hand in hand. A blast of cold air hits them as they step outside; the sky has gone grey and cloudy and Rose absently hopes it won't rain again.

Jack shivers, turns his collar up against the wind. "Twenty-first century Earth," he shrugs. "Freezing. So what exactly do you plan to do now that you've got me here, Rose Tyler?"

She silently admits that she hasn't got a clue, really, and wonders if he is simply playing along. But she needs to talk. "I have a lot I need to tell you."

"And I have a few questions of my own." The wind picks up, scatters leaves and litter and paper at their feet.

She recalls his expression earlier when he acknowledged Torchwood, heard her name. "Well." Pause. "How's chips sound?"

Jack raises an eyebrow, looking bemused. "Sounds like a plan."

The inside of the café is welcoming and warm, small and utterly normal. The few customers look up briefly at Rose and Jack as they enter, with little interest, just another couple of unimportant people out of hundreds on the street.

Jack plows into his pile of chips as if he hasn't eaten in a week. Or maybe there aren't chips in the fifty-first century. Rose isn't sure. She knots her fingers together under the table and watches him act as if nothing out of the ordinary has happened. At what point did this world split from the other?

She clears her throat tentatively. "Your ship," she begins tentatively. "Why's it called Bad Wolf?"

He shrugs, swallows a mouthful of grease. "Just sort of sounded good. Old Earth nursery rhyme, right?" He grins slyly. "Who's afraid of the big, bad wolf..."

_I might be,_ Rose thinks, and recollects singing and streamers of golden light. "And why'd it crash?"

Jack's grin fades quickly. "Malfunctioned. I was in a hurry. Nothing I can't fix."

"In a hurry from what?"

He doesn't meet her gaze, pops another chip into his mouth instead. "Let's just say I'm not supposed to be here."

"Makes two of us," Rose mutters, mostly to herself. Through the window, people rush back and forth and bunch together in the grey outside; it has begun to rain and drops splatter the sidewalk, quickly growing in number.

Jack watches her watching the rain. "In that case, why don't you tell me what you have to tell me, before I have to disappear."

"Right." She wonders where on earth to possibly start. "I dunno...how much of this you're going to believe. But I can't...I can't _not _tell you, and you have to know that it's important, more important than any of this, and that I haven't got a reason to lie to you..." She is rambling, she knows, talking away the absurdity of the moment. Any minute reality could settle in.

Jack holds up a hand, and she trails off. "It's okay," he says kindly, looking at the girl across the table from him. She is struggling with something, and somewhere far off in his mind, a voice is whispering for him to listen, because this is far from insignificant. "Go ahead."

She glances out of the window again, and then looks directly at him, into his eyes. Takes a deep breath, and begins her story, words spilling out on top of each other. Tries to stick to the essentials, but it is useless. She begins with that night in the basement of Henrick's, oh so long and long ago. Tells him about the Tardis, the Doctor, and it is the first time she has spoken his name out loud in months and months. The blue box and the man that were both her home. Tells him of being taken away to the end of the world and back, of the Gamestation. About the other him, of dancing next to Big Ben in the middle of an air raid, running and running through time and space, the three of them, of the Time War and Bad Wolf. Black holes and impossible planets, alien invasions on Christmas. And finally she tells him about her last story, the last great battle, the void and Bad Wolf Bay and Torchwood and how it all ended.

Jack sits still and quiet the entire time she is speaking, so urgently, and leans forward and doesn't speak or interrupt. Listens to her fantastic tale and doesn't tell her that she's mad, doesn't try and leave.

"And that was the end of it," Rose is saying. She fiddles with the silverware on the table and suddenly feels drained. "All over, jus' like that, gone." Like having the ground fall out from beneath your feet, or the sky caving in. "And then you showed up, an' I saw the words on your ship, words I never thought I would ever see again, and...well, I still don't know what to think." She looks up, and her eyes are fierce. "So whether you believe me or not - I understand why you wouldn't."

Jack has every reason not to, and considers the stranger sitting across from him, and unexpectedly feels very lost. "I do believe you." And it is possibly the most honest admission he has made in ages.

Rose is slightly incredulous, relieved at the same time. "You do?"

He does, but doesn't quite know why and decides it is easier to ignore the specifics. "I'm not from this century," he reminds her. "Time travel and alternate dimensions-" he waves a hand in a dismissive gesture. "Well, yeah. But as for traveling _between _worlds...it's just not done, it's not possible in any century."

She fights back the urge to laugh. "That's what I thought." _I can see everything. All that is, all that was. All that ever could be. _

"That's a hell of a past you've got, Rose Tyler. All of that." He leans back and studies her intently. Intrigued. "And I don't know why, but I'm still here."

The rain slows and stops. They have been inside a long time, the café is becoming crowded and fills with nameless people and chatter. "What does it all mean?" Rose asks, absently.

"It means we should probably get out of here." Jack stands and tosses his napkin onto the table. "And I'll tell you what I can, and you can tell me how different I am from the Jack you knew, and you can decide for yourself."

_tbc _


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter Five 

_In my head there's only you now_

_This world falls on me_

_In this world there's real and make believe_

_And this seems real to me. _

Rose doesn't know where else to go, so she takes them to Pete's house, where there are less questions. Doesn't want to think about what they are saying back at Torchwood. She feels quite absurd, with Jack-but-not-Jack sitting next to her in her tiny car. She's just spilled a few years of past history to him that would land any normal person at a therapist with a half a dozen prescriptions, and he now knows more than she's told even Mickey. And what for? Will it change anything? Rose admits that she's not particularly sure. She is operating on gut instinct. Reaching for a connection. _Bad Wolf. _Can't just be a coincidence. Can it? The universe, she concludes, has got a twisted sense of humour.

"God," she says, half-laughing to herself. "This is so weird."

Jack glances at her sidelong. "If that's what you think, then I don't think you know the meaning of the word."

"You know what I mean," Rose protests. "And trust me," she assures him, " I've seen weird."

"I've seen things that'd beat the pants off your weird any day," he informs her, and grins slyly, ready to launch into a list of examples.

She remembers the stories that the other Jack used to regale them with, all colorful to say the least, and too bizarre to be anything but true. The Tardis filled with their uncontrollable laughter. She hadn't laughed that hard since. You can't get back through the looking-glass again.

"S'okay, I believe you." Pete's house looms ahead of them, and the car crunches on the gravel drive and rolls to a stop. "If you run into my mum," Rose adds as an afterthought, "Good luck." She catches a glimpse of her reflection in the window as she shuts the car door. Her roots need retouching, she thinks absently. Hair that she hasn't cut in over a year falls well below her shoulders, still blonde, out of habit.

Jack looks stricken, probably reasoning that he didn't sign up for mums at the Time Agency, and tries not to picture his ship sitting in Torchwood, closed off tight. He steals a glance at the strap tied around his wrist, unknowingly returned to him by Rose with his pile of clothing, and its smooth surface is completely blank. Curses softly underneath his breath before stepping out of the car, thinking that time, among other things, is going to catch up with him sooner or later.

The house is quiet, save for the tick of the clock in the hallway and the muffled sound of talking drifting through the downstairs. Jackie has gone out and left the television on. Rose automatically heads to the kitchen and puts the kettle on.

She sets the mug down on the table in front of Jack with a muted clunk. "English tea," he says, wrapping his hands around the warmth. "A universal constant in any century."

Rose cracks a smile. "Good to know." _Eastenders _plays on in the background in the warm, bright room. To Jackie's relief, television programmes were found to be nearly identical in this dimension.

Jack is silent for some time, gazing off into middle space. Rose rests her chin on the tabletop and watches him tentatively. "What are you running from?"

Jack demurs. "What makes you think I'm running from anything?" He looks at her appraisingly.

"Jus' a hunch." She shrugs, noncommital. "Maybe...I can help."

Jack shifts around in his chair. Any other day, and in any other situation, he'd have rather submitted to multiple kinds of torture than ask for help. And knows that volunteering any form of true information about himself is, uncompromisingly, a Very Bad Idea. Five years with the Time Agency had all but indelibly ingrained that. But any other day he wouldn't have been sitting in a twenty-first century Earth kitchen with a girl who claims to have seen the end of the world.

_Screw that,_ he decides, resolutely. What, at this point, is there to lose? What is there to be cowardly about?

He puts his palms flat on the table, leans forward towards Rose. "What do you know about the Time Agency?"

"Not much," she admits. "When we met up with you - the other you, I mean - he told us 'e was - used to be, rather - a Time Agent. He thought we were with them." Her eyes turn sorrowful. "Said they erased his memories. Woke up an' two years of his life was gone. Didn't even know what he'd done...I wonder if he ever found out."

Jack shakes his head slightly. Not surprised. "That's what I'm running from, Rose." His voice is cold, contained. "But I can still remember."

Rose furrows her brow. "Remember what? What could be that bad?" She knows what memories can do. Had watched the Doctor as he was haunted by them, and now she simultaneously clings to and tries to forget her own.

"It's a long story." He stands up, tense, paces a few feet across the glossy floor. "The Time Agency began well before my time, but it wasn't - isn't- until the fifty-first century that they've gained most of their authority. I couldn't know what I was signing into at first. We became so powerful...well, you know how dangerous it can be - tampering with time. All of that control. The Agency became corrupt, or had been for years. Beyond corrupt. We were just... following orders."

Rose is remembering the Reapers, the consequences. Satellite Five. How easy it was to mistakenly think that you can wander through time and leave no tracks. Or make no mistakes. And how easy it was to alter events and leave and never look back.

"How corrupt?" she asks, pushing away a tinge of fear.

Jack paces back and forth restlessly, sits back down again. "History is being rewritten all the time, out of our hands, right? We can't know what will happen at any particular point in the future because time isn't linear. But if you can, what's to stop you from manipulating it?"

_Nothing, _Rose thinks. _What was there to stop us? _

"They have more control than you can imagine. Shaping events in their own favor only makes them more powerful, and we were all blind to it. I don't even know how deep it goes." Something remarkably uncomplicated, given the resources, but immeasurably dangerous.

"An' that's why they're after you? To erase what you know?"

"If they've decided to just erase my memories," Jack tells her grimly, "I'll be lucky." No more orders, just flying at breakneck speed on the edges of time and space, away from everything.

Rose digs a fingernail into the surface of the table. Remembers the Jagrafess all too clearly. "Controlling humanity, and everyone jus'...obeys. Why doesn't it ever change?"

"Not just humans." Jack shakes his head, almost apologetic. "Everything. Every planet that you and I have set foot on. That's what I'm dealing with, Rose." He closes his eyes briefly, a tired gesture. "Something I helped to bring about."

"Not everything." She narrows her eyes. "Not me. Not Torchwood. We don't have any files, any information on the Time Agency. I've looked."

"Of course you don't," he says. "There is no Torchwood in the fifty-first century. Your institute is in ruins, courtesy of the Time Agency."

Rose boggles at him slightly, thoughts racing. "They can't have. This is _Torchwood. _It's mine, it's..." She is well aware of how absurd she sounds. The Torchwood she had helped rebuild was supposed to protect and grow and succeed and watch over humanity long after she was gone. Was supposed to be limitless. Something that would be allowed to last.

"Your name was in what was left of the files we found," Jack adds as an afterthought. "Rose Tyler."

Her shoulders sag. "I guess I need to reevaluate my definition of forever."

Jack grins ironically. "There is no such thing, sweetheart." What is infinite? It all comes to an end eventually. Worlds and wars and people and planets. _Everything must come to dust. All things. Everything dies. _

The light outside has faded quickly, the windows dark, night is setting in earlier and earlier in the wake of winter. She is already wondering what she can possibly do. _You don't just give up, you don't just let things happen._

"I'm sorry," Rose tells him, genuine. "I know what is to run. And lose something." She pauses, and is now resolute. "What can we do?"

"If I knew," Jack tells her, "I'd be doing it, and not crashing into Southend."

The front door opens and closes with a resounding bang; Jack looks up sharply. "Rose?" Jackie's breathless voice sails in, breaking through the somber air. "Rose? Are you in here? I just popped 'round to Anne's for tea." Still shouting. "Have you been outside, love? Had to come home before it got worse."

She appears in the doorway, looking slightly disheveled, the baby ensconced contentedly on her hip. "Oh," she says, stopping short upon seeing Jack. "Who're you, then?" Another strange man her daughter has brought home is cause for some suspicion.

"Jack. From work," Rose says, in a tone that doesn't invite further questions. Jack smiles charmingly, on cue. "Before what got worse?"

"Oh, you must've got home a while ago, then. It's snowing out, can you believe that? Snow! The roads were getting awful, really, I would've stayed at Anne's a bit longer but as it was getting so dark..." She continues chatting amiably and sets to pulling the curtains closed, but Rose has already bolted for the front door and flings it open to the swirling cloud of white.

_ tbc _


	6. Chapter 6

A/N: Finally finished! Thanks for reading.

Chapter Six

_I need your grace_

_To remind me_

_To find my own._

They sit outside, oblivious to the cold, and watch the snow whirling thick and fast. Big fat flakes, pure white against the pitch-black sky. _Real snow, _Rose thinks. Not the falling ashes of a burning ship. She can almost see Christmas. Jack is quiescent next to her, wrapping himself in an artificial pretense of safety, and all around them the night is still and cold and calm.

She idly tries is count the snowflakes, but soon has to leave off. There are too many, and the numbers get away from her.

"Last time I saw snow," Jack is saying, "I woke up face-down in an avalanche of it." He looks wistfully reminiscent. "Now that I think of it, I can't remember what planet that was...bet it was a hell of a good story, though."

Rose looks at him, and sees memories. "You're not so different from my Jack."

"You miss him."

"I miss a lot of things," she says tonelessly.

"Tell me about it." Jack pulls his overcoat tighter around himself. "You know," he continues, thoughtful, "here...the Time Lords, they're a myth. A story, something told to children. A pretty fairy tale."

Rose knows, she's done her research. "Fairy tales don't exist anymore," she says, matter-of-fact. "An' if they do, then they haven't got happy endings." Wonderland is gone, or maybe there was no rabbit-hole in the first place.

Jack doesn't bother to reply, because he knows this all too well.

"Did you lose a lot of people?" she asks softly.

"Yes. Too many." He has spent a long while trying to drown out the screaming that echoes dully and persistently in his mind.

She nods and casts her gaze skyward. The snow has not slackened. The trees and grass and Rose's car are pristine beneath it. "He was the last," she says. "His planet died. We watched my planet die." But still kept running. Because the wonderful always eclipsed the terrible. Endless stars spread out beneath her feet. She smiles faintly. "He was the last, and he was my life. Never did get to see Barcelona."

"It's gotten touristy," Jack says off-handedly. "Pompeii, on the other hand..." Pauses. "I can't stay on this planet for much longer. If the Time Agency catches up with me here, well...there'll be hell to pay, and Torchwood won't get off lightly."

"I know." She flexes her fingers, starting to become numb. "How long are you going to run for?"

He narrows his dark eyes, anger flares up. "You think I enjoy it? I used to think that I'd rather die than run like a coward." And he has seen too much, and has too much pride, to give into fear. He's not running because he's afraid, but because he wants to live. Life wins out any day.

And Rose understands this, what he isn't saying. And understands why he believes her and why he is sitting with her still. _Bad Wolf,_ inscribed on the marred and battered ship, waiting in the dark. So maybe it doesn't matter if fairy tales are real or not.

"Would you go back an' change what happened, if you could?"

"No," he says instantly, without hesitation. "I'd rather be here now with nothing than be ignorant of the universe falling apart." And what use is it, he thinks, staring into the past? He's already made up his mind, and so has Rose.

"I'm not goin' to let them destroy Torchwood," Rose tells him firmly. There is always a choice, she knows. A choice to refuse to obey.

Jack raises an eyebrow at her. "You got fleet of time machines and an armory hidden down your shirt?"

"Ha. No." She takes a deep breath of air so cold that is hurts her lungs, and there is clarity all around. "But Torchwood is the one thing I've got, an' I'm not going to lose it. And they've taken too much from you already...and from my Jack. I'm not here to sit by and do nothin'. Just tell me what I can do."

He looks at her, sees purpose, and feels the beginnings of resolve. And elusive hope. The corners of his mouth turn up in a sly grin. "If you're going to help me, Rose Tyler, then you can start by busting my ship out of your bunker - and whatever weapons you have buried there."

Later that night, Rose curls up tightly in her bed and cannot sleep. She sits up in front of the window, watches the snow fall by the outdoor lamps. Past her door and down the hall, the floorboards protest faintly underneath Jack's feet. In an attempt at practicality, she has convinced him to rest while they both still can, while it is still quiet, before returning to Torchwood at dawn. She knows Mickey and Jake are still there working very late, and opts to wait for the shift change, feeling mercilessly guilty because she knows she will not tell them.

So she sits in her room and listens to Jack pace, and tries with great effort not to consider what the implications will be of what she is planning to do. Or of what the consequences will be if she doesn't do anything. A small key, long unused but not forgotten, glints quietly in the subdued glow of light falling across the windowsill.

Jack yawns until his jaw cracks, rubs his eyes. He is exhausted, but uneasy and cannot sleep. Wants to be back on his ship and far away, to have his feet well off the ground again. Thinks about the strange girl in the next room whose name is buried in the remains of Torchwood Tower thirty centuries from now, and about the plan that he doesn't quite have.

"Rose."

"Hm." Rose stirs, opens her eyes, disoriented. Jack is standing in the doorway, and she blinks at him and tries to focus her eyes in what little light there is. "Fell asleep."

"We need to leave," Jack is telling her, the urgency clear in his hushed tone. He holds out his arm, and she can see a pinprick of red blinking insistently in the shadows. "Radar," he says succinctly. "Picking up on the Agency's ships. We have to get out of here now. And fast."

She throws a hurried glance at the clock - not quite the time she had planned, but that can't be helped, and she springs out of bed to gather clothes and shoes, moving as quietly as she can manage. The rest of the house slumbers around them, and for once the stairs are silent beneath her feet.

Jack has shot outside like an arrow in front of her, and a flurry of powdery snow swirls and blows into the house and settles softly across the floor. At the door Rose halts abruptly, turns on her heel at the front of the great, tall, ticking grandfather clock. Pauses for a millisecond, then resolutely reaches out a gloved hand and stops the swinging brass pendulum. The_ tick tock _ceases, the ancient hands on the clock face slow and stop. And she follows Jack out into the night, tracking footsteps across the flawless white path.

They pile wordlessly into her car, and she breathes a sigh of relief when it starts up immediately and keeps her foot pressed to the floor, knuckles white around the wheel, until Torchwood comes into view.

Rose drives to the far side of the tower, where the lot is blessedly empty, and kills the engine and flicks off the lights. "Right," she breathes, looking sharply all around. "Plan?"

Jack looks faintly bemused. "Do you need one?"

She glances at him, with enough sense to be mildly exasperated. "Don't try an' tell me that Captain Jack Harkness doesn't have a plan."

He leans over. "Right. The general idea is to get the hell out of here before my ass is vaporized. Want more details?"

"Uh-huh." She unbuckles her seatbelt and pockets her keys, trying to ignore they way her hands shake ever so slightly. "I'll make sure the airdock is clear. Give me five minutes."

Rose is relieved to find the hangar is nearly empty, and she easily dismisses the sole couple of technicians on her way across the scuffed and cluttered floor. They leave quickly and without question, grateful to go home to rest. She sees Jake moving around the far side of Jack's ship, and takes a deep breath and goes over to him, thinking absently that she'd give an arm for some psychic paper.

Jake hears her footsteps, and looks up with a frown. "Not doing anything I shouldn't be, am I?" He holds his palms up, clearly conveying annoyance. "Mind explaining to me what's going on?"

Guilt seeps in, and it feels familiar. After all Jake has done, she knows he doesn't deserve to be lied to. "Probably nothing."

"Probably nothing is why you had to stop my work earlier without an explanation?"

"No." She pauses. "I'm sorry, I am...is Mickey still here?"

"Went to get coffee," Jake says, rubbing a hand across his face in a tired gesture. "Think he's on his way out soon."

"Why don't you go as well?" Rose suggests, keeping her tone as light as possible. "Take a break, you look exhausted...I'll keep an eye on 'fings here."

Jake shrugs, exasperated but admittedly too tired to start an argument. "Not much to keep an eye on, anyway."

Rose hurries to shut the door quietly behind him, overrides the lock, and thinks ridiculously to herself that Torchwood security shouldn't be _this _easy to breach, even for her.

She leans over a computer and taps out a hurried sequence of numbers on the keyboard, furrowing her brow in consternation. The security codes for the building are immensely complicated, out of necessity. Mickey knows them, has in fact set most of them, but Rose is well aware that her abilities are still quite lacking in comparison.

Jack's footsteps echo across the floor in the cavernous space as he strides up to her at a half-run, having decided that it is far past time to go. "Outdated," he comments, hefting a bulky, unidentified alien weapon out of one of the piles of equipment Rose had been trying to tag the previous week. "But it'll work."

"I'm trying to shut down the alarms for this room," Rose tells him, pushing her long-hanging hair back from her face in frustration. "We'll 'ave every guard in 'ere in ten seconds otherwise."

Jack casually leans over the keyboard and scoffs at the twenty-first century technology. "No, we won't." He rapidly punches in a series of keys, too quickly for Rose to follow, and the computer beeps amicably in reply and quietly shuts down, along with the alarms and cameras that flicker and die inconspicuously . "Who programmed that, anyway?"

Rose is mildly indignant. "We 'ave the best security in the country."

"Well, obviously." He shoulders the weapon, and she watches as he turns and presses a button on the device strapped around his wrist. "It won't be offline for long, though."

"You'd best hurry, then."

Jack's ship, _Bad Wolf_, shifts and moves and creaks slightly, and along the rusted underside a barely-visible set of doors slide open, a barred ramp unfolds and touches the floor with a metallic clang.

"Remote control," Jack acknowledges as he springs toward it. "The very _best_ in technology from the Time Agency."

Rose cracks a smile, watches with a feeling of distant familiar longing as the machine comes to life. "Very Spock," she comments absently, and resolutely places both hands on the lever mounted on the nearby panel that opens the entire far wall of the airdock, and pulls.

She winces at the glaringly loud noise, knowing it won't go unnoticed by about the entire complex. Her heart is in her throat - she has had enough trouble trying so arduously to explain her actions in the past, when she couldn't really claim to know all the how's and why's.

Jack pauses, halfway up the heavy grated ramp, and turns back to her expectantly. "You coming or what?"

The sounds fades out all around and the walls fade away, and there is just Jack standing at the entrance of this rusty and dented time-traveling ship with a beguilingly simple question.

And Rose stands very still, and breathes, and looks up at him. At the doorway behind him that holds the promise of so much, at one more chance at everything. At her world's future.

Jack shrugs at her reticence. "You can't save Torchwood in the fifty-first century standing around in this one, Rose. What's it going to be?"

All of the time she could ever want, within reach. The opportunity to change what will be. There is always a choice, and now there is nothing but a crystalline clarity all around. _I am the Bad Wolf. I create myself._ What does it matter if there are no fairy tales? Perhaps we write our own, and maybe there are no endings.

And Rose, without a further thought or backward glance, bolts forward up the ramp, feet clanking on the metal, and past Jack, and into the ship. The door slides shut behind them with a smooth quiet click, and Rose cannot hear the sound of Mickey shouting after her on the ground, yelling over and over.

The inside of Jack's ship is cluttered, dark, and Rose has to duck past a bit of low-hanging ceiling on her way in. Smells faintly of metal and something like motor oil, and she makes her way to the very front of the ship with its broad domed window and worn panels with a multitude of controls that appear to have been thrown together haphazardly.

"Welcome aboard," Jack announces, maneuvering past her. "We'll have to save the grand tour for another time."

She presses a finger to something that looks like an old computer keyboard, and looks all around, taking everything in. "Feels like home." And she blinks at an errant twinge of familiar bittersweet nostalgia. A hand wrapped tightly around her own, her cheek pressed against a battered leather jacket. _But you never take time to imagine the impossible - maybe you survive._

Jack bustles around her, gracefully sliding into the wide pilot's seat. He swiftly flicks multiple switches, pushes buttons with practiced ease and the curved console is suddenly illuminated with rapidly blinking lights and glowing screens. Numbers and symbols flicker and scroll. The interior is filled with a gentle humming that grows in volume until the entire ship springs to life, rumbling and shaking around them. Rose wraps her hands around the back of the chair and tries to plant her feet steadily.

"Ready?" Jack throws her a manic grin, and for a moment the shadows are chased away from underneath his eyes and he is young again, in love with the thrill of it all.

And Rose smiles back at him, a true smile, full of anticipation. She is nearly giddy, and her mind is too cluttered with the here and now to focus clearly on what she is leaving behind, or who. Unfairly, perhaps. But there is a universe out there that needs saving, and the opportunity, and Jack and this ship, and she has nearly forgotten just how badly she needs to be out in the middle of it. _Backwards or forwards in time?_

"Yeah," she confirms, "Let's go." And feels full of intent and purpose and reason. The ship lurches all around them, and within minutes lofty Torchwood Tower shrinks far into the distance, along with the innumerable glittering pinpoints of the city behind them. Sunlight begins to seep over the horizon, pale and luminous - it is dawn.

_fin_


End file.
